State and revolution

What is State? State is an instrument, which has certain essential features. State as an instrument of force possesses its organs of military, police, jail, courts and a control center in the form of parliament, king or such some other sensitive organic body working like a mind of this instrument. State is an instrument of coercion and has its sensitive mind – the nerve center – to take decisions. This instrument, which is often called an institution in modern democracies, is not above the society, which it often claims and presents so of itself. It is very much a part of society. Also this instrument in effect and reality does not belong to the whole society, which is so propounded in theory in modern democracies. In fact, there is no such thing as the ‘whole society’ in whichever society this State instrument is present. The presence of the State in a given society shows that such society is divided into two classes, which are certain to be antagonistic in their economic interests (this certainty of the presence of two antagonistic economic classes in the given society is vouchsafed by the existence of the coercive instrument of state). Thus goes the logic of Marxist Dialectics, as explained by V. Lenin, Russian revolutionary and the father of Russia’s 1917 October Revolution. This logic when executed in practice by him in Russia came to be known as Bolshevism.

What is the origin of State? The origin of State lies in the division of the society into two distinct sections – classes – of which defining character or features are determined by the fact whether a class of people own the means of production available in that society or a class is deprived of the ownership of those means of production and is simply made to work on those means for those who own them. The mechanism –political or economic – by which this ownership of the means of production is initially obtained by the class of owners and later secured by enacting social laws sanctioning this ownership or by which depriving the other class of people of those means and making them work on those means for others is justified by social norms and laws, is secondary in importance and inconsequential while considering the nature and origin of State. State as an instrument is not above the society but is simply in its formation and use an organ of the class of those people of the society who own the means of production as their private property. This state instrument is controlled – sometimes directly, as in monarchy and sometimes indirectly by money, as in modern democracy – and used for their own economic interests by the class of people who own the society’s means of production. In stark reality, the king’s command is used to pass orders or money is used to elect parliament to make laws that serve the economic interests of those who own the society’s means of production and, consequently, that make the deprived class of people to suffer economically and compelling them circumstantially to work for others; in stark reality, those who oppose these moves are brought by the force of State before the courts of law – as if the courts and laws are above the State and neutral – and punished. And, in stark reality, in order to ensure that the economic interests of such owners’ class – dominant or so-called ruling class – are furthered, State instrument brings in its aid all its organs – military, police, jails, media et al – to guarantee that the current establishment continues. This is the essence of Marxist theory as propounded by Lenin.

Communist revolution: what is it?

How to end the economic injustice involved in the capitalist mode of production? The answer to this problem lies in a political revolution to be carried by the class of workmen, Marxism-Leninism maintains. It is advocated that the class of workmen should get united, get armed and should overthrow the State (which is only a serving instrument of capitalists) by force. It involves blood-shed and this violence is justified, because the dominant class owning the means of production (that is, the wealth of the nation) can never, by virtue of human nature, give away voluntarily its wealth. Lenin expounded Marxism further on this aspect in his book ‘State and Revolution’ by saying that contradictions – that is, conflict of economic interests – between the two classes of capitalists and workmen (based on economic consideration) can never be reconciled and therefore State in capitalism, which with all its instrumentalities like parliament, judiciary, military, police, jails and their supporting agencies is only an organ of force in the hands of capitalist class, can never be reformed so as to serve the economic interests of the class of working people. The old State of capitalists needs to be completely dismantled and broken beyond its repair (by capitalists in a counter-revolution).

Therefore, this bloody revolution carried by the class of workmen (which revolution, in fact is carried not by the class of workmen but by a group of committed and ruthless professional revolutionaries in the name of the working class people) has the two-fold agenda of annihilating all instrumentalities of capitalist State and fabricating de novo all the instrumentalities of a new State committed to the economic interests of the working-class people.

Why a new State is necessary for a class-less society of workers? There are two reasons for fabricating a new and committed State. Firstly, there always remains a danger of an armed attempt by the expropriated and defeated capitalists to stage a comeback by destroying the new and fledgling social system of workers; and secondly, as the old habits of improper social or economic conducts on the part of ex-capitalists do not die immediately after revolutionary change of the social system, a force of the State is needed for some time to make them reconciled to the new realities, if necessary by the use of State force. It is maintained that State, as an instrument of force to be used by a class against another class, will wither away after some time in Communism. How long would it take for the new State to wither away? It is maintained that the new State will be needed by the working people till capitalism is completely destroyed in the world or a new working-people’s culture becomes the part of public psyche, whichever is last. History of Communists revolutions in different countries show this has not happened anywhere so far. This is only a theoretical exposition of revolution made by Marxism, as elaborated by Lenin while carrying out the October, 1917 Soviet revolution in Russia. In practice it is not so.

Marxist theory has two important inbuilt concepts of “dictatorship of Proletariat” and the Communist party as the “vanguard of this Proletariat”. These two concepts are extremely pragmatic in nature and the only viable devices to meet the requirement of the work to be accomplished. The Communist thinkers came to the conclusion that the “vested interests”, which fully control the capitalist State through their money-power, would not permit such a drastic change in the social order unless they are compelled by force. These two concepts of Communists allow them to organize, execute and complete this drastic social change in a manner that is controlled, precise and calibrated like an army operation.

But here comes the weakest point of this method. We are not talking here the techno-military superiority of the powerful “keepers of the present social order”. We are talking here of the inherent weakness of this method of bringing a change by violence. In this method, as of necessity, a small group of leaders has to constitute themselves into a command center. Even among this small group, most often an individual has to take the required initiative of the mission to be accomplished. But there in this group the working is not smooth and cohesive; there is intra-competition and rivalry; and, under the trying circumstances, a sole leader emerges like a shining star; he is the “Leader”; his word is the “Command”. It is the inner story; it is the real story. Outwardly, the “Leader” is only the “beloved” of the command group; the command group is only the “vanguard” of the exploited millions of people; and, the “exploited people” rule themselves through their vanguard etc. etc. Here comes the crux. Seen from the spiritual wisdom, human beings are by and large governed by lower impulses, like hatred, love, jealousy, anger etc. and the “Leader” and his competitors and / or cronies are also not immune to these human weaknesses. It is but inevitable that a great and benevolent social change brought by this method is doomed to end in a reign of violence and terror; And, at the end, the people oppressed by this violence throw away the “Leader”, unfortunately, along with the social order, which they mistakenly identify with the “Leader”. It is a classical example of throwing away of the bath-water along with the baby.

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